Advice from Kodiak/Topkick or F650 owners

[DieselPower]

When it comes to medium duty trucks there are only two that I would buy. International or Freightliner. A good friend of mine has a whole fleet of FL-50, FL-60 and FL-70's powered by Cat 3126's and 5.9 Cummins. He loves the trucks and wouldn't swith to anything else. In my opinion GM and Ford are "auto" manufacturers wanting to play with the big truck group guys. International and Freightliner are true truck manufacturers.

 

[workinallthetime]

id look real hard at a crew cab 4500/5500 gm topkick/kodiac. make sure you get air ride at least so as to make those trips to the track more comfortable. At 10000 you are still within the limits of a 3500 but you obviously want bigger. Alot of times you can find a better deal at a med/heavy duty dealer than you can at a light/medium duty dealer. the sales staff is usually geared more twords getting the right truck for you than selling you on something they want to get rid of. ive worked in a gm dealer for 12 years and have worked on medium duty for 6 of that, most of our problems that require actual down time seem to be with the older stuff. The 4500 series and up have had a few trim issues but other than that they seem pretty solid.
good luck man
if your near oklahoma seen me a message offline and i will put you with my brother and he can spec one out for you.

 

[rback33]

How about one of THESE...

Fancy Dodge Magacab

Buddy of mine emailed me that link... thought it fit here....

 

[TwinCreek]

Only a 10k trailer?
What problems with the Dodge Mega cab? I know it's a short bed but it should pull a GN with no problems.
Going with a class 4 and up truck would be great but it's only 10k trailer....right?

Only a 10k trailer now, but I want to plan for the future which will be a 40ft trailer, and its part want and part need. Although from some of the other valuable information provided in other posts here, I need to consider the drawbacks a little closer.

I like the Dodge Mega cab, but not at the expense of shortening the bed. The Dodge quad cab (with an 8ft bed) is much smaller than the Ford or GM.

 

[TwinCreek]

Why would "anything with a navistar/international is out of the question"? I'm sure you know that IH medium duty trucks are available with the DT466, which is widely regarded as the best medium duty diesel on the planet. IH is the world's biggest seller of M/D diesel engines and M/D diesel trucks.

Another thing: If you're ruling out "navistar/international", then you might want to rule out the F-650....it's built by a IH/Ford joint venture known as "Blue Diamond" in a plant in mexico. The F-650 has a lot of IH parts & DNA in it.

CAT powered medium duty trucks have had lots of problems with the CAT smaller diesels. You'd be much better off with DT466 power than C-7 power.

Lots of guys I know are buying C-6500's with the 7.8L Duramax (Isuzu) diesel or the 4500/5500 with the smaller 6.6L Duramax and are pretty happy.

I have a 6.6L DMAX in my GMC3500 and like it so far. I also have a DT466 powered IH dump truck and it's the best diesel I've ever owned. (knock on wood).

Hey L39Builder,
I stand corrected. Thank you for the insight. From what I understand, its the Ford engine management components that are failing on my Ford 6.0L, not the parts made by IH.

 

[workinallthetime]

How about one of THESE...

Fancy Dodge Magacab

Buddy of mine emailed me that link... thought it fit here....

"that thing got a hemi in it", lol goes w/ my avitar.
so its a 22,000 pound pulling conversion truck, one thing i always found with conversion trucks was warranty issues, especially if the conversion company goes out of business. Back in the 90's i know of 3 conversion companies that went out of business boy were those some POed customers when they found out that gm would not cover what an aftermarket company did to the truck. Remember one van that had some kind of LED lights that were like runway lights inside the van, circuit went bad and burned up the head linner before the ground wire smoked in half. I never have been a fan of "upfitted" trucks after that.

just my life experiences but it still looks cool going down the road

 

[rback33]

"that thing got a hemi in it", lol goes w/ my avitar.
so its a 22,000 pound pulling conversion truck, one thing i always found with conversion trucks was warranty issues, especially if the conversion company goes out of business. Back in the 90's i know of 3 conversion companies that went out of business boy were those some POed customers when they found out that gm would not cover what an aftermarket company did to the truck. Remember one van that had some kind of LED lights that were like runway lights inside the van, circuit went bad and burned up the head linner before the ground wire smoked in half. I never have been a fan of "upfitted" trucks after that.

just my life experiences but it still looks cool going down the road

Actually... I hate that thing... Too gawdy for me... I need to outfit my pickup and when i do it will be all black.. no chrome..... my cummins does not need "bling" to be awesome..... that Wilson 1000 CB antenna is as close as it gets....

 

[workinallthetime]

Actually... I hate that thing... Too gawdy for me... I need to outfit my pickup and when i do it will be all black.. no chrome..... my cummins does not need "bling" to be awesome..... that Wilson 1000 CB antenna is as close as it gets....

ok good cause i really think its pretty bad, especially with those red neck stacks on it,lol.
black yours out thats a good look, i like the black rims with a crome lip they really look good on a truck with some meat mounted on them.
tell me something with all these problems with gm and ford diesel engines does the cummins have any repeat offenders like the other 2? seems everyone rags on ford for the 6.0 and d-max for injector problems but dont hear much of any cummins problems. i know dodge has some issues with transmissions but if gm buys into dodge then you could have a cummins with an allison in a 3/4 ton. That i might even buy.

 

[Builder]

It's ashame it has to be that way for ford. Check this rig out and tell me it's not one of the baddest trucks you've ever seen!

http://www.thedieselgarage.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10150&d=1175739103

 

[workinallthetime]

It's ashame it has to be that way for ford. Check this rig out and tell me it's not one of the baddest trucks you've ever seen!

http://www.thedieselgarage.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=10150&d=1175739103

im as general motors as they can get but those fords are good lookin maybe even better lookin than gm but i didnt say that and you didnt hear me say that.

check out this bad boy c7500 4x4 made for the navy to pull attack boats out of the water